Interesting Birthday Facts

Since we are very little we acknowledge the existence of an important day, every year called our birthday in which we are told we celebrate our birth and the fact that we add another year to our lives. It is a common habit to organize birthday parties on such occasions and to receive gifts.

These are the basic birthday facts we all know, but how about other birthday facts? Do you know anything interesting about birthdays in general?

Let’s discover some birthday facts and see how many of them you already knew about and which of them came as a surprise for you!

The first birthday celebrations to be held were said to cast away evil spirits and protect the birthday person from any harm. This is how birthday wishes and the bringing of gifts started.

In the age of kings and queens it was believed that only royalty was important enough to be thrown parties and birthday celebrations.

The early Christians and Jews rejected birthday celebrations as they considered them idolatrous. The Romans however embraced them in the fourth century.

The use of hats and noisemakers originates in the belief that noise would scare away evil spirits that were said to be attracted to the birthday person.

First century Jewish law forbid the celebrations of birthdays.

Germans are said to have invented the birthday cake and they called it "Geburtstagorten".

Ancient Greeks were said to use candles on celebratory dishes as to make them glow like the Moon as a celebration in the temple of Artemis.

Lighting candles on cakes and then blowing them and making wishes is said to be a signal for the gods.

Aztecs used to twist the bowels of sacrificed animals in all kinds of shapes to present them as sacrifices to the Gods. It is believed that this is what inspired toy balloons and turning them into all kinds of shapes.

The pioneer in rubber manufacturing toy balloons is Thomas Hancock.

In England, it is customary to receive a telegram from the Queen at the completion of 100 years old.

For the French and the Italian it seems more important to celebrate anniversaries (name days) than actual birthdays.

The month with the least birthdays is February.

August is the month that has people sharing the most birthdays.

It is likely that over fifteen million people share the same birthday with you.

Birthdays are not always moment to rejoice as they can bring either enthusiasm and happiness or depression and melancholia.

It seems that most babies are born on Tuesdays while the least number of babies are born on Sundays.

The Golden Birthday happens when you celebrate the same age as the number of the day in which you are born.

We only celebrate our birthdays on the exact week day we were born every 7 years.